An unlikely draw

Here's the scorecard of last evenings Div. 2 match

Marple C                 Altrincham     24/03/14

1 G Trueman     0.5/0.5   R Clucas
2 N Livesey         1-0       K Lockett
3 T Kay                0-1       M Whalley
4 A Jenkins         0.5/0.5   N Lowe
5 T Cowling          1-0       W McCartney
6 J Anderson        0-1        D Hughes

                              3-3

With a somewhat depleted team I feared the worst against a strong Altrincham side. If I am being really honest for most of the evening I thought the only thing that was in doubt was whether we would lose 5.5/0.5 or 5-1.

Andys game was the first to finish. From what I have seen and experienced of Nick he plays the openings more accurately than some players graded 50 points higher than him. Here as Black he defused one of Andys pet lines and the draw was agreed in a dead position where virtually all the pieces had been exchanged off.
0.5/0.5

Tony then lost to Mark Whalley. I've seen Mark play some lovely attacking games for Club and County over the  last couple of years and sad to say from the Marple point of view this was another one.

0.5/1.5

Joseph was making his C team debut on Board 6. He fought hard and well but was up against a very experienced opponent and was eventually ground down.

0.5/2.5

My opening experiment had gone horribly wrong and I was totally outplayed by Reg over the first 25 moves. I then fell into a devastating Rx Na5 combination which should have been terminal. The only way to keep the game going at all was to give up Queen + Bishop in exchange for both Rooks. It was pretty hopeless though, not only was I the equivalent of two pawns down my remaining pieces had no scope at all. Very luckily for me Reg missed  several utterly decisive moves and then started to run short of time. I was still very surprised when Reg offered me a draw but I suspect he was partly making a team decision to absolutely make sure Altrincham won, as this made the score...

1/3

... and things didn't look good for us on the remaining two boards. Nigel seemed to have at best a draw in a Bishop ending but Karl very much wanted to win. He played on but overpressed and excellent technique by Nigel produced a position that was won by one tempi.

2/3

Even so Terry had been facing what appeared to be an overwhelming attack for a long time, but somehow (and I still don't know how) managed to wriggle out and even managed to turn the tables completely.

3/3

So amazingly we drew the match and still have a chance of winning the league. Many thanks to all who played, particularly Joseph for standing in at very short notice.

Glenn.